With Grandpa Valya

Grandpa Valentin came over for Thanksgiving, bringing Henry a small plastic basketball hoop and ball. (Last time he brought a wonderful set of trucks.) They played together for a long time.
Then, between courses of dinner:
 
We are so happy to see them completely comfortable together and enjoying each other's company! 

Just Henry

Nice to have a weekend at home; no conferences, no classes: just us.

Yoga

There was a time when Henry pronounced it "yoo-ga" but now it is yoga. Someone came into his daycare last week and gave a demonstration, so he knows a wider range of poses now.
Whenever we do it, he wants to join in--not on his own mat but on one of ours, usually directly underneath us. Eventually we give up and he takes over the mat.
But he has such fun doing it, especially standing on the yoga block and jumping off, that it is hard to hold it against him.

Sharing

On the subject of possessiveness: how would you like it if someone you didn't know too well showed up and asked to "borrow" your car? Or your iPod? The demands we make on little kids to "share" their stuff are totally unreasonable. Yet Henry's day care teacher has done a great job training the kids to share and to be diplomatic about not wanting to.
Having no siblings, Henry seemed a bit disconcerted when Paul arrived. Yet his first reaction when Paul came and sat on his little chair: "I will go bring another chair for Paul to sit on."

Never mind that Paul may have had other ideas.

You have to at least admire the impulse.

Visit from "Baby" Paul

Our friends Kathryn and Eckart came to visit last weekend with their 18-month-old, Paul, whom you may remember from our New Haven posts as "Baby Paul." Kathryn was presenting at a conference in Boston; unfortunately I was simultaneously presenting at a conference in DC, so only got to intersect with them for one night and one morning. Still, it was great to reconnect and hang out.

Paul has gotten very big and smart. He has a funny easy-going way about him, a bit like Winnie the Pooh.

He and Henry reprised their old custom of taking baths together -- now with the addition of 2-year-old possessiveness.

And look how expert they've both become at mugging for the camera!

Thai food with Hazem

Latest art

Paper-cutout art from day care. The assignment seems to have been: make a portrait of your family. There's Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear, and Sweet Henry Bear.

More cutout art. We've mostly been saving these things to wrap Christmas presents; I used one as stationery the other day.

These are about the size of an egg - cute. His fine motor skills are getting pretty fine.

Training for the Dinosaur Liberation Army

Tweetle Beetle Battle

It seems someone at day care has been reading Fox in Socks to Henry...

Night cap

One night at bedtime Henry spontaneously asked for a hat. I brougth him this John Deere cap, which we think might have come from the organic-farmer uncle of Ken's friend Kim.

This hat has now become part of the bedtime ritual.

Which gets extended, of course, any way Henry can think of. (Look at the number of books he's pulling out.)

Good night at last?

Last night he literally put Ken and me to bed: around 10pm, seeing that we had both fallen asleep reading stories to him in our bed, he quietly left our room, went to his own room, climbed into bed, and went to sleep.

Reprieve

How come holidays are so much more fun than weekends? (Could it be because three of my weekends this month have been taken up with conferences?) Both Tufts and BU cancelled classes for Veterans' Day on Tuesday. An opportunity for a nice nap in Henry's bed (not taken by Henry, mind you)...

...and a pizza-making project. Rolling it out:

Putting tasty stuff on top:

Ta-da! (Take that, Italy-dwellers.)

Happy post-election day!

Thank God 2-year-olds don't get to vote. We hadn't talked about the election too much, but just to be contrary, Henry had decided he was going to vote for McCain. He told us so on the way to the elementary school where we voted. He said it again at 7am today: I woke him up with the news that we had a new president, and he said: "It's McCain." I said no, it was Obama. "Why not McCain?" Henry asked, genuinely perplexed. "Because not enough people voted for him, so he lost the election," I said. This Henry seemed to grasp. He came out to talk to Ken, who was surfing the blogs on the couch: "Obama is the president because McCain is lost," he told him. By 9am he was singing: "Obrigado Obama!"

Arlington, precinct 3, 7pm last night. No lines. Straight into the booths.

It felt kind of like a carnival. The election volunteer, a nice Italian lady who lives on our street, encouraged Henry to feed my completed ballot into the machine. She even suggested the best angle from which to photograph him doing it. (Imagine another country where they let you take pictures in a voting station??)

It's amazing to think he won't remember any of this day; only the consequences.

Watercolors

Henry sat at the table with Nancy for at least 30 minutes doing watercolors. (Perhaps partly because she was painting too.) Cool, no? His attention span has really lengthened since he started day care. These two paintings went back to Italy with my dad, as presents for Grandma Masha. Since it's the signature that makes it art, my dad helped Henry trace a big H in the corner.

The bat returns

More Halloween pix from Grandpa Ken.

Pinocchio

My mom couldn't come, but she sent this Pinocchio puppet with my dad.

Jump!